


and for a breath of ecstasy

by paperiuni



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Light-Hearted, M/M, Porn with Feelings, Vignette, Wall Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-09
Updated: 2018-02-09
Packaged: 2019-03-15 16:55:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13617639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperiuni/pseuds/paperiuni
Summary: Nearly to the bed, they'd stopped to kiss with a decadent purpose that, if you asked Magnus, fit this ill-gotten hour. It was the pilfered fruit that tasted the sweetest, after all.Magnus and Alec steal an afternoon for themselves. (Or, "Is it really an OTP until you've written them fucking against a wall?")





	and for a breath of ecstasy

**Author's Note:**

> There are no spoilers but this is set some time after episode 2x20 (before season 3 rolls in and josses my very important wall sex ficlet).
> 
> If you've read _all the streets lead to morning_ , then this fic references some dialogue in that fic, but this can be read entirely separately. It's just frothy porn.

  
_Spend all you have for loveliness,_  
_Buy it and never count the cost;_  
_For one white singing hour of peace_  
_Count many a year of strife well lost,_  
_And for a breath of ecstasy_  
_Give all you have been, or could be._

— Sara Teasdale, "Barter"

* * *

They were stealing time.

So far the victims of their misdeed were relatively few: Alec's revisions of the Bronx patrol schedule had been the first, followed by a cantankerous collector Magnus could placate with a modest discount next time she needed something archaic or arcane translated. He'd judged not answering her call quite entirely worth it.

Though they were partners in this crime, the alliance hadn't preserved them from each other's hands. Discarded articles of clothing littered the floor. Alec had hung his coat up tidily, but his work boots lay tipped over halfway across the living room. He'd strung one of Magnus's necklaces on a floor lamp, where it glittered precariously in the pale sunlight. Outside, the winter day pushed against the windows in spidering ribbons of rime.

Nearly to the bed, they'd stopped to kiss with a decadent purpose that, if you asked Magnus, fit this ill-gotten hour. It was the pilfered fruit that tasted the sweetest, after all.

Alec trailed his hands down Magnus's sides, over skin he'd teased to a prickling heat. Magnus's fingers had worked his hair into tangles. The shortness of his breath gave away his wanting. They were in the part where lust gave broad leeway to whim: getting lost in each other's bodies, in the soft places of mutual curiosity.

Then Alec went to his knees, sliding out of Magnus's loose embrace, and kissed his hip, a lingering dip of his mouth to the skin. A repeat to the other side; another low on his stomach. Magnus held his breath for this last one. He stroked over a faint mark he'd bitten onto the base of Alec's neck.

"I'd hate to state the obvious," he said, "but you seem to be hedging a little there."

Alec turned his face up, his eyes wide and his mouth curved, a bright, slightly suspect expression. "Ask me."

Magnus hummed with mirth, with the shuddering creep of awareness. "Whatever you're thinking, chances are I'll enjoy it."

Some fifteen minutes ago he'd crowded Alec to the doorframe and bruised his neck with kisses, wrested him out of his last clothes by hand rather than magic. There was a charm to putting effort into things that mattered, and the frequent undressing of Alexander Lightwood counted as a worthy pursuit.

Alec's hands splayed over the small of his back. His voice was more sober than enticing. "I'm thinking you should ask me."

Even as Magnus felt his own face shift, he decided against averting it. Kneeling there, Alec was breathtaking. Not in his warrior's grace or his fumbling, ferocious integrity, but in the mix of challenge and reverence he showed unstintingly.

It was an offer, Magnus decided. Alec could tease—oh, and how—but he didn't bait. Magnus had told himself to remember that. He let Magnus cup his face, touch his lip. He was still in the taut way that meant it was something of an effort.

Magnus traced the soft width of Alec's mouth with a pensive sweep of his thumb. "And if I do ask you?"

"I'll give you what you want." Alec smiled, quick and crooked, glancing down as if suddenly shy. "Assuming it's a doable thing."

He didn't sound shy. He sounded utterly sure, never mind the caveat tailing his answer. It stirred a sharp jag of desire in Magnus.

"Your mouth on me," he said. Alec made a small noise and shivered at nothing but the words. Someday they ought to test how far that tack would take them. Magnus let himself think of another proposition they'd spun up not long ago, in a moment much like this one.

"Okay." Alec tilted the word to the curve of Magnus's cock that he'd so carefully skirted. He was absurdly tempting.

"I wasn't finished."

"Ah." By now, Magnus might as well hang for a sheep as a lamb, or at least for the surprise dancing across Alec's face. Alec recovered swiftly, though. "Sure. Keep talking."

"I'm starting to think you like that."

"I'm not trying to shut _you_ up, am I?" Laughing, Alec leaned his head against Magnus's hip. He had to swallow around an ache in his throat before nudging Alec's eyes up again.

"I want you to kiss my cock," he said, his knuckles under Alec's jaw. "I want you to open me up and fuck me against the wall of my bedroom."

Alec, his valiant, wayward Alexander, nodded up at him like something had clicked into place.

The next blurry while saw them drift from the bed to the wall, amid urgent kisses and seeking fingers and a good deal of noisy appreciation, chiefly from Magnus. Alec could be frightfully quiet even in the hard grip of pleasure, though Magnus had made it his mission to disturb that silence when opportunity presented itself.

At present, he’d quite lost awareness of everything beyond Alec's touch, when Alec withdrew to rasp out a curse.

"Mm-hm?" Magnus surfaced with a start. The wall was smooth at his back, warmed by his body. The strain in Alec's breathing mirrored his own.

"Stele." Alec waved his hand in illustration. "You expect me to hold you up for any sustained period of time, I'm gonna cheat. Unless you've got a trick for that?"

Magnus, admittedly hot and hazy from floating minutes of those deft fingers in him, found himself laughing. "You're—being practical. About this whim of mine."

"Well, yeah." Alec raised a brow. A fresh trail of sweat broke from his hairline. "We're about the same size, and even if you put your legs around me, it might get—"

"Get up," Magnus demanded, and Alec stood, swaying a bit from his long kneeling on the cool floor. Not waiting for him to be steady, Magnus kissed him, drew him fiercely close, tasted himself on Alec's warm, surprised mouth.

"What was that for?"

"Nothing." An abject untruth. Magnus dropped a hand between them to feel out the contour of Alec's body.

"So you don't have anything? 'Cause I do need my stele otherwise."

"Alexander." Magnus tried to sound more breezy than breathless. "If you think I can hold a spell while you're inside me, think again."

Alec frowned for a precious second, then went red. "Oh. I, uh." His voice nearly vanished. "God. You did that on purpose."

"I did." Magnus palmed Alec's cock with a gentle hand. "I assume your tool of the trade isn't too far away."

"Holster. In the coat rack." Alec tensed as Magnus tried out a couple of light, twisting strokes. "That's _not_ gonna help me get it."

Focusing his thoughts, which were twined up in Alec, Magnus recalled him coming in some time earlier, shedding his coat and weapons and muttering, candid as you pleased, _I’ve been thinking about you all day_. At that Magnus had shut him up for a minute.

In any case. Coat rack. Magnus reached out with a pinpoint of will and drew the stele onto his upturned palm. “You didn’t even have to ask.”

Alec took his face between his hands and kissed him. Sweetly, raptly, the way he did when he needed to center himself on Magnus. Quite disarmed by this, Magnus answered the kiss without hurry and let it feed the heady tension in the air.

It was Alec who finally pulled away, groaning as he did so. Taking the stele, he touched it to a rune and flung it onto the bed with hardly a look. Magnus bit back a chuckle, spreading his fingers over the rune that rather resembled a curlicued backwards _J_. Shadowhunters guarded the meanings of their runes with needless jealousy, but he could recognize most of the common ones.

"Strength, not stamina?"

"Seemed appropriate." Alec crouched to pick up the lube that'd been dropped to the floor at some point of their foreplay. Then he glanced at Magnus.

"I'm happy to watch you."

"Should've known," Alec huffed, undermined by the humor in his tone. He backed up a judicious half a step and closed his slicked hand around his cock. His mouth parted at his own slow-smooth tempo; Magnus flicked his gaze down to the slide of his shaft through his long fingers, and back to his darkened, wanting eyes.

They had their days and weeks apart: in a way, he'd gotten used to missing Alec. Not always with grace, but with growing certainty that whenever he did wait, it wasn't in vain. They'd find each other in whatever quiet hours they had. Magnus felt Alec shiver with the effort of keeping his strokes loose and easy.

"I want you in me," he muttered before he'd even really thought it.

Alec gasped, visibly mustering himself. He took hold of Magnus and lifted him cleanly, his legs hooking around Alec's waist and one arm around his shoulders.

"Okay, cheating: definitely worth it." Alec shifted his grip until they had an acceptably comfortable position, braced against the wall and each other. He seemed taut with desire rather than physical strain, the help of the rune subtle but evident.

"Is it cheating if we both benefit from it?" Magnus claimed another kiss, wet and skewed, clinging to it as Alec slid inside him in a short, testing tug. The second one broke the contact, and Magnus bent his head into Alec's shoulder. "Oh. Oh fuck."

"I'm, ah, gonna assume that's good," Alec said by his ear, gratifyingly hoarse.

"Whatever gave it away?"

It'd been a long while since Magnus had last indulged in this particular pleasure. Another first, then, with Alec. Each threshold they crossed held its own wonder, and this misty thought made him search for Alec's face.

He was waylaid by Alec pressing close to take his mouth. As the kiss deepened, Alec pulled out of him and ground his hips lazily. His cock slipped against Magnus's ass in sticky, taunting glides.

" _Alec_ ," Magnus said, the word scarcely splitting one kiss from another. Alec hummed into the next one, but didn't change the pace or angle, each stroke skimming across his rim. Magnus bit Alec's lip in response, hard enough to elicit a moan from him.

"That's dirty." It didn't sound like a complaint.

"Says the man who's—who's made it his day's work to drive me mad," Magnus shot back. He liked to think his composure was no easy thing to crack, but Alec had a way of undoing him that he was mastering with alarming, delightful quickness.

"No," Alec said, rough and guileless. "Just to make you see stars."

"You really don't aim low, do you?" Magnus laughed, clenching his fingers into Alec's back, then looked dramatically upward. "That's it. I regret everything. Letting this ridiculous overachiever into my bed, first of all."

"We're not _in_ your bed." Alec wound an arm under Magnus's knee and planted his palm to the wall.

"True." Heat shivered in Magnus's stomach as Alec's movement spread him open. "Though I do like to think of it as ours, these days—"

Alec surged up and into him. The rest of his sentence shattered at Alec's cock pushing deep, filling him the way he'd yearned for all day. They'd circled one another for what'd felt like hours, and the circling had honed this moment to aching sweetness, but one could only bear so much.

Now Alec began to work up a proper rhythm. Magnus sank into his strong steady thrusts with unabashed noises, kissed his ear and throat and shoulder, and held on. Alec pressed his face into Magnus's hair, all but muffling his low, "God, you feel good."

"And you," Magnus said, not to be outdone, "are terrible, stubborn, singular, and I—oh, do that again."

Interrupted by a drag of movement that spilled sheer, sharp pleasure in its wake, he bent against Alec, who canted his hips obligingly and replicated, after a couple of tries, that same stunning angle. Magnus abandoned all pretense of putting two words together. He bared his throat to Alec's clumsy, determined mouth, and gave himself up to just feeling him.

Their gradually knitting relationship had been a cause for fear and marvel for them both: a string of revelations for Alec and re-discoveries for Magnus, old paths made new by the fact that he walked them in new company. He'd trod them often enough to understand the rarity of what Alec held out to him. _Trust me_ , he said, not in so many words, but in act and gesture. _Trust me and I won't let you fall._

In the great count of things, sharing a nurtured fancy might not weigh much. Magnus had dropped more jagged pieces of himself into Alec's hands, and he'd bled as he held them. 

"Alec," he murmured, need cracking his voice. "Alec, Alec, _please_."

Alec's only answer—his breaths rasped loud and quick in his lungs—was to shift closer, his cock jerking inside Magnus, his lips improbably on Magnus's own. It wasn't much of a kiss, wet heat and gasped words to the effect of _yes_ and _don't stop_.

"Damn it," said Alec then, in a timbre of dismay. A shudder went through him that didn't mark pleasure but exertion. Magnus groaned at this rude intrusion of reality, comprehension dispelling the thick haze of his arousal.

"Put me down." He swallowed, setting one hand behind Alec's neck.

"God, I'm—"

"Not a word more." He could sense Alec shaking as he, with reluctance, lowered Magnus back to his feet. Magnus passed a hand over the rune that had dimmed to its usual inky black. "Kiss me."

Magnus remained grateful for the wall behind him. As Alec did as bid, if a little haltingly, Magnus trailed his fingers to the still-slick shaft of his cock. He could still feel its solid fullness between his legs, but Alec's startled, pleasured noise at his touch eclipsed the sensation.

"You're wonderful, is what you are," he said. He worked another soft moan from Alec with a firm stroke; Alec grasped his shoulders as if he'd stagger without the support. "And I adore you."

"Magnus." Maybe it was a protest, maybe a plea. Alec had held himself in check and now his control gave like a fire-worn wall. "Oh, fuck, Magnus."

Wrapping his own aching cock in the grip, too, Magnus pulled Alec to him. The last of his resistance seemed to wash out with that movement. His release painted Magnus's stomach with warmth, the trembling tension bled from his muscles, and he smothered a sound into his own hand that finally wrung the tight-knotted orgasm from Magnus, too.

He lost a tiny spell of time. His hips bucked into his hand, up against Alec, who clutched him close until the blissful white rush of his climax receded from his senses. By some minor miracle his legs held.

Alec dipped his brow to Magnus's. His lashes flickered. Out of the corner of his eye, Magnus glimpsed flurries of snow drifting behind the window.

"Hey," Alec said, stopping to lick his dry lips. "Same to you."

"I think I said rather a lot." Magnus looked at Alec and wondered if he'd ever seen anything dearer. "Which part do you mean?"

"The part where you're pretty great." Alec cast a look past Magnus. "You think I'd even _technically_ sneak out of work for just anybody?" Technically, he'd brought a tablet and the patrol schedules, to finish them while Magnus dealt with his own work. Then they'd gotten diverted by mutual decision.

"Should I expect a new reason for disapproving looks the next time I drop by the Institute?" The moment robbed the question of all bite.

"I cover my tracks better than that." Alec looped his arms around Magnus's neck. The tilt of his head asked for a kiss, so Magnus indulged him, light but lingering. "And I expect better from my people than that. For you, and for everybody."

"Well, before we throw ourselves into anything resembling productivity," Magnus said, diverting them from the topic, "I will delay you for another hour. We both need a bath."

"Yeah." Alec frowned in exaggerated contemplation. "I'm not saying we do it _now_ , but hypothetically, how hard would it be to have sex in a bathtub?"

Tugging a fresh towel from the linen closet with a snap of his fingers, Magnus let it smack fluffily into the side of Alec's head. "We'll talk about that the next time you can steal away an afternoon."

Snorting in good-natured amusement, Alec caught the towel before it tumbled to the floor. "I'll see what I can do."

Magnus let himself hear the promise there.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are welcome!
> 
> tumblr: [poemsfromthealley](https://poemsfromthealley.tumblr.com)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Podfic: and for a breath of ecstasy](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17380967) by [Djapchan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Djapchan/pseuds/Djapchan)




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